Page 4 of Take My Hand

“You can’t just leave!” I hate how my voice cracks, hate every single tear that drips down my heated cheeks. “We’re supposed to be a team.”

Daniel whips around so quickly he blurs in front of me. “We were supposed to be a team. So why the fuck did you stand there and let them talk to me like that? Huh?”

His face is flushed with rage, eyes burning with fury. It’s not a new sight, but this fight feels different. His anger feels different. There’s something behind it.

Embarrassment?

Hurt?

“And you stood there. You stood there with them. You chose them! So don’t whine now that I’m letting you go.”

The last hour is a blur. From Daniel berating me for forgetting to clear the memory cards ahead of tonight's show and backing me into the guardrails while doing so, to Hayden rushing over to pull him off, to Boone striding in and firing Daniel on the spot. And the way Daniel stormed off, as I came down from the shock of the interaction and went headfirst into a panic attack right there in front of everyone.

And the way Hayden talked me through it, the way Scar held my hand after as if the action of it was the only thing keeping me together.

I shake my head as if that will change the words he’s saying to me. “I didn’t know what to do.”

“You never fucking do,” he snaps, then laughs cruelly. He finishes stuffing the last of his clothes into a duffel before zipping it so aggressively I’m shocked the thing doesn’t break. “You can’t do shit by yourself. Can’t make your own decisions. You’ve been lucky to have me figure things out for you. Good luck trying to do anything on your own because guess what?” He throws the duffel over his shoulder, then scoops up our bags of camera equipment. He walks the few steps across the hallway of the tour bus until my back is pressed to a row of bunks, my gaze lowered down to our feet. “You’re nothing without me.”

The words sting, and honestly, they shouldn’t at this point. I’ve heard it from him before.

But they pierce my defenses and explode inside my chest, bringing fresh tears to my eyes. They hurt so bad because deep down, a part of me believes him.

My entire adult life has been tied up with Daniel. My home, my friends, my career, this job, everything I have is because of him.

Who am I without him in my ear, guiding me on my decisions or telling me what my next step should be?

A well of panic opens in my stomach and my heart falls through it.

“Please,” I whisper, not even sure what I’m begging him for.

“Look at me,” he demands.

I raise my face, looking into his eyes and by the hardness I find, I realize this might be the last time I stare into them.

“You’ve dragged me down for long enough. You embarrassed me in there. Do you think I’m going to be made a fool of by my own girlfriend, in front of the guy who hired me for this job?”

I don’t miss the way he says me instead of us. I open my mouth to answer him, but he cuts me off.

“And as I walked away and turned to see that you didn’t move an inch, had no intentions of following me, your fucking boyfriend…” He yells the last two words, and I flinch, as a small drop of spit hits my cheek. “I realized that maybe you’ve been making a fool of me this whole time.”

How could I have been making a fool of him this whole time? The work I’ve done has been up to everyone’s standards. There’s no way that any of my work has been creating a poor reflection on him.

“Don’t play dumb with me,” he says, voice dripping with condescension. “Why else would I have almost had my shirt ripped apart by that asshole if you weren’t fucking around with him behind my back?”

I rear back with a hard thud against the bunk behind me. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Daniel shakes his head. “Not going to admit it, huh? Well, you can tell that bitch he can have you.”

“Are you talking about Hayden? There’s nothing going on with him,” I say, dumbfounded.

Daniel always watches me like a hawk, tying me up with work or dragging me around with him to do things. Hell, we don’t even share a tour bus with Whisper Me Nothings.

“Do you think I didn’t notice the way he looked at you?”

I stare at him, at a complete loss of what to say. Yes, Hayden rushed to my defense, pulling Daniel off and away from me. But that was it. So did Walker and Boone. Scar too.

“That’s what I thought.”

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